There are many different techniques for rebuilding logos in Illustrator. Factors such as font availability, quality of originally submitted artwork, and style of logo all play a key but below are some general tips that should assist you in rebuilding logos in Illustrator that were submitted to you in a non-vector format.
Font Book
If you’re on a Mac, using Font Book’s “custom” preview search is a must. After getting in the habit of processing logos regularly, it becomes easy to match most fonts if you have them, quickly. In this short video, I’ll demonstrate how to set up and use Font Book for easy typeface matching to fonts you have on file.
[jwplayer file=https://vpgrfx.com/adguidelines/wp-content/vid/FontbookCU.mp4]
If you are unable to identify the font, another good option is to try What The Font which will allow you to upload a sample of the font to be identified by their system. If the automated system isn’t able to identify it, they also have an enthusiastic community of font aficionados who are eager to hep and often get an answer for you far more quickly that would normally be expected.
Google Image Search
Searching for general images on Google for use on ads is a bad idea and against department policy. Even finding a higher resolution version of an image file the client provides that is clearly not their original image can sometimes be questionable but in the case of logos, Google image search is both safe and helpful. In this example, the logo submitted is poor quality. Preforming a Google Image Search for “yoga-clothing logo” provided a much better higher resolution version of the lotus flower from the logo.
Getting the Artwork Shape Without the Pen Tool
In this short video, we’ll take a look at how to pull a good vector outline off of an original image of artwork. Keep in mind this works better, the larger the original file is. It is counter intuitive, but sometimes enlarging a small lower resolution file can yield better results. blurring and using levels or brightness/contrast can be used to remove “jaggies” that may result from enlarging something small.
[jwplayer file=https://vpgrfx.com/adguidelines/wp-content/vid/RebuildCU1.mp4]
Putting it all Together
In this video, we’ll assemble the final logo, using what was originally submitted as a reference to size and position the text with the outlined artwork.
[jwplayer file=https://vpgrfx.com/adguidelines/wp-content/vid/RebuldCU2.mp4]